GOP largely votes against holding Trump impeachment trial

WASHINGTON (AP) — Senate Republicans voted overwhelmingly Tuesday against moving forward with Donald Trump’s historic second impeachment trial, making clear a conviction of the former president for “incitement of insurrection” is unlikely.

In a 55-45 procedural vote, the Senate set aside an objection from Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul that would have declared the impeachment proceedings unconstitutional. That means the trial on Trump's impeachment, the first ever of a former president, will begin as scheduled the week of Feb. 8. The House impeached him two weeks ago for inciting deadly riots in the Capitol on Jan. 6 when he told his supporters to “fight like hell” to overturn his election defeat.

Yet the support of 45 Republicans for declaring the trial invalid indicates that there are long odds for Trump's conviction, which would require the support of all Democrats and 17 Republicans, or two-thirds of the Senate. While most Republicans criticized Trump shortly after the attack, many of them have rushed to defend him in the trial, showing the former president's enduring sway over the GOP.

“If more than 34 Republicans vote against the constitutionality of the proceeding, the whole thing’s dead on arrival,” Paul said shortly before the vote." Paul said Democrats “probably should rest their case and present no case at all.”

The senators took oaths Tuesday to ensure “impartial justice” as jurors in the trial, proceedings that will test Republican loyalty to the former president for the first time after the deadly siege at the U.S. Capitol.

Many Republican senators, including Paul, have challenged the legitimacy of the trial and questioned whether Trump's repeated demands to overturn Joe Biden’s election really constitute “incitement of insurrection."

So what seemed for some Democrats like an...